Week 2: What does Khordoc think the Asterix series does better than Hergé’s Tintin?

It’s great to read the article by Khordoc I admit. The last time I read Tintin, Asterix and Luky Luke I was still a 5 grader kid so everything is about the same as far as I could recall. However, after I read the Blue Lotus I felt something is off. It not as interesting as it used to be and I thought of the art was the reason as I read quite a lot of mangas and the distribution of the ‘windows’ are quite different. However, this reading really explains the reason why.
According to her, the illustration of the sound in the comics is the reason. Comparing to Tintin, Asterix is definitely more interesting in term of information delivered. In Tintin, Hergé relied mostly on the art to express the sound as it happen. There are some sound such as the gun sound but they are minimal. Every collision, hitting is drew as stars without any sound devices where as there are a variation of devices in Asterix. In the article, Khordoc (2001) points out the differences in ‘speech balloons’ as well as the ‘narrative balloons’, the colour of those balloons, the image in it and even the balloon’s tail to express feelings. An example given by Khordoc is when Obelix try to speak ancient Egyptian, the image of his ‘word’ is poorly drawn to illustrate his bad accent. Another point is René Goscinny draw a thinking balloon as a cloud and replace the tail which guide to the speaker with the bubbles. Comparing to Tintin which all the balloon is rectangular and in some part it make me think he mumbling to himself. As a result, she regards Hergé comics as “textual” and “highly narrative” (pp. 164).

References:

Khordok, C. (2001). The Comics Book’s Soundtrack: Visual Sound-effects in Asterix. In Varnum, R. & Gibbons, C. (Eds.), The Language of Comics: word and image, (pp.156-173). Jackson: U Press of Mississippi.